Adventure Creation

Tonight I did a in-house bookstore night where I push the table in another corner of the room and set up like I was at the bookstore.  I need to do this every so often to help me focus and it allows me to write without getting distracted for a few hours. 

Tonight I started with a blank state.  No map or plan.  So I grabbed +Richard LeBlanc's d30 DM Companion and his d30 Sandbox Companion  turned to random tables in the DM Companion and then did a few rolls on the adventure tables in the Sandbox Companion.  Here's what I came up with.

• Treasure Finding Potion requires the imbiber to consume 3x the food and drink for the next week.  Used, but tweaked the side effect.  See the adventure for the new version.
• Wooden coffer trapped with a magic symbol that does 3d4 damage of frost damage and the target is slowed for the rest of the day.  Kept it as is.  I added the slow affect.
• Hobgoblins (5d4) = 12  If the patrols are used I think there are 16 total hobgoblins
• Stirges (5d4) = 17  I went with 13 stirges.
• Gnolls (3d6) = 12   I dropped the total to a single gnoll.
• Trigger: Vision  Dropped.  I tried to write it as a vision, but it sucked.
• Major Goal: Investigate Location  Not the major goal, but just a needed aspect.
• Obstacle: Aquire Knowledge  In an indirect way this is the major goal.  The potion grants this.
• Location: Ruins  Kept, love me some ruins. 
• Location Feature: Chapel  Kept, love me some ruin chapels.
• Phenomena: Shadows  Dropped.  Just didn't fit in with what I wanted to do. 
• Villain Goal: Greed  To be determined.  This will end up being at least a two part adventure.
• Artifact/Relic: Potion of Treasure Finding  Used.  I like the slant I used for this one. 

 So this was the seed of the adventure I wrote.  I liked having the adventure revolve around getting an item, but not just an item, but rather a tool for something bigger with a side effect when used.  Now of course I did not use everything exactly as rolled, but it helped guide the writing.

While I didn't have a map I put the chapel in some barren hills, party encounters a patrol of hobgoblins before reaching the chapel.  There are two ways to enter the chapel, through the tunnel which is infest with a nest of stirges or through the chapel itself where more hobgoblins await.  The chapel itself is made of a single room above ground, and then two room underground, a basement and a well room where the goal, the treasure find potion is kept.  

When I write an adventure I usually write it three, four times.  I had three false starts with this one until I settled on my current version.  I will draw the map and edit to become one of my micro-adventures.  Here is the raw copy of the adventure.  I very pleased the way it turned out.

Untitled Adventure

Suggest a title and maybe you'll get a copy of the adventure when I'm done.